A Note from Fatty: Lots and lots of 100 Miles of Nowhere Race Reports are starting to come in. I’m going to post several per day, so check back often, and be sure to leave a comment for the folks who have taken the time to not only ride, but to write about the ride.

A huge thanks to everyone who has ridden (or will soon ride) the 100 Miles of Nowhere. By doing something ridiculous, you’ve made a big difference.

Sometime today, by the way, I hope to post my own race report — I think it’ll be a good one.

I’m fairly new to this whole 100 MoNW thingy. Last year was my first time and I had a blast. I was planning on doing the same thing with the same crew from last year, but my schedule got in the way. In other words, I’m a wuss for not thinking I could do 100 MoNW and then a race the next day.

So instead I tried to get some friends to ride with me on a different day. I couldn’t find anyone willing to join me. So I took the next logical step and recruited my wife and daughter. Sounds good you might think – but my wife just got a bike last year and my daughter is 4 years old.

To make things even cooler, we decided to make it a fundraising event. After route inspection, Charlotte expressed to me that she thought she could ride 5 laps. So that’s what we told people she was shooting for when we asked for their support.

The morning of our event I loaded up on waffles and bacon and started my route. It’s pretty easy, feels mostly downhill, so the laps started to tick off pretty quickly. After 21 or so, I stopped in to check with the family and see if it was time to start. Sure enough everyone was ready.

For Charlotte’s sake we rode the route backwards so she wouldn’t have as steep of a climb to contend with. We also set up a snack table. This worked two-fold: obviously it held all of our snacks for the ride, but it also worked as a bribe table for Charlotte. We could get her to do a lap, eat some snacks and then ride another lap. Eat snacks, ride, repeat. Fortunately for me, Charlotte hasn’t figured out when I’m bribing her, so it totally worked.

Notice the bad-ass Twin Six shirt:

One of the snack times between laps….the table held: swiss cake rolls, grapes, bananas, water, snacks from our goody bags and a sandwich.

She’s been riding a pedal bike since she was 3 and is transitioning between two sizes. So some of the time she was on her 12″ bike and the other times she rode on her awesome Raleigh Retro 16″ – it has fenders. And a cool bell.

During every downhill section, Charlotte would yell “wheeeeeeeeee!” (pay no attention to my early ’90s era shoes.)

After hitting her goal of 5 laps (6.5 miles), she was still smiling and still ready to go for another round (maybe the Swiss Cake Rolls had something to do with it…)

Excellent writeup Grizz, and cute-as-a-button is right! Cycling IS a team sport after all. @ Paul G, 9:48am, you cracked me up good! I’m pretty sure if there WAS a 4-yr-old race cat the UCI would be all over it. There’d be rules on the size/quantity of juice-boxes, fruit roll-ups, and I’m sure they’d somehow get into what color helmets are allowed (absolutly NO little Mermaid or Sponge Bob, sorry kids!)

Well done Charlotte! My daughter rode 15 miles of the the Best Buddies Hearst Castle ride at 7yrs old and had a blast. Rode with her Mom who, like Charlotte’s, had only recently begun riding again. Daughter had to drop Mom on the only uphill when the Jelly Belly Rider came up and they rode off riding tempo.

@Comment by Scott R | 06.6.2011 | 10:17 am
Better get out there soon. They are only “newborn” for a limited time.